Web Development Team Research Articles

A self-management psychoeducational eHealth program to support and empower people with advanced cancer and their family caregivers: Development using the scrum methodology

BackgroundeHealth programs could be a flexible and scalable resource to support and empower people with advanced cancer and their family caregivers. A face-to-face intervention that has demonstrated effectiveness is the “FOCUS” program, developed and tested in the USA. Recently the FOCUS program was translated and adapted to the European context as part of an international study in six European countries, resulting in the “FOCUS+” program. FOCUS+ served as the basis for development of the web-based iFOCUS program. ObjectiveWe aim to (1) describe the development process of the iFOCUS program, (2) outline the challenges we encountered and how they were overcome, and (3) present findings regarding the acceptability and usability of iFOCUS. MethodsWe used the four phased agile Scrum methodology to develop iFOCUS and applied set timeframes of rapid program development and evaluation (sprints). Five teams were involved in the development i.e. a core development group, a web development team, an international consortium, audio-visual experts, and potential end-users. ResultsDevelopment followed seven steps, integrated across the four phases of Scrum: (1) concept design, (2) development of mock-ups, (3) Feedback from the international consortium, (4) technical development of iFOCUS, (5) creating versions for the six participating countries, (6) preliminary testing of iFOCUS and (7) implementing the final version in a randomized controlled trial. User testing included 42 participants (twenty patient-family caregiver dyads and two bereaved family caregivers) who reviewed the iFOCUS program. Users found the iFOCUS program to be acceptable and usable. Feedback mainly focused on text size and fonts. Minor changes to the content, tailoring, and program flow were required. During development we encountered program specific and general challenges. Using the Scrum methodology facilitated iterative development to address these issues. For some challenges, such as tailoring, we had to make pragmatic choices due to time and resource limitations. Conclusions/discussionThe development of a tailored, self-managed psychoeducational eHealth program for people with advanced cancer and their family caregivers is an intense process and requires pragmatic choices. By keeping the emphasis on the target population during development, no specific remarks pertaining to advanced cancer were identified. Some challenges we encountered are common to eHealth development, others were related to program specific requirements. Using the Scrum methodology allows teams to efficiently collaborate during program development and increases the flexibility of the development process. Interpersonal contact between research staff and potential end-users is recommended during and after the development of eHealth programs.

Visibilitas Website UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta dalam Pemeringkatan Webometrics

This article attempts to describe the efforts to increase the visibility of the website of UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta in webometrics ranking. Webometrics is a means to measure the progress of a university through its website. This article aims to find the right work steps in an effort to increase website visibility and also the birth of practical steps to lift webometrics rankings that can be used as guidelines by website managers at UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta. This research uses a qualitative approach with a descriptive type. The main data was obtained using Focus Group Discussion (FGD) techniques by presenting parties related to webometrics ranking, having knowledge of SEO practices, and having experience in web management. The findings indicate that there have been efforts to increase the quantity and quality of content with the establishment of the publication and documentation division. There are still various obstacles to be faced, such as content management that does not meet SEO principles, several pages and subdomains that are not maintained, are damaged, and even lost, causing bad backlinks. It is necessary to build a website that uses the multisite method which is very effective and efficient in integrating various website needs at UIN Jakarta. The need for various efforts to overcome these obstacles, such as the need for effective communication between web development teams, the need for SEO-friendly content writing training, and the importance of SOPs in optimizing web performance and getting maximum webometrics ranking.

Fona

The Web 2.0 brought new requirements to the architecture of web systems. Web applications’ interfaces are becoming more and more interactive. However, these changes are severely impacting how disabled users interact through assistive technologies with the web. In order to deploy an accessible web application, developers can use WAI-ARIA to design an accessible web application, which manually implements focus and keyboard navigation mechanisms. This article presents a quantitative metric, named Fona, which measures how the Focus Navigation WAI-ARIA requirement has been implemented on the web. Fona counts JavaScript mouse event listeners, HTML elements with role attributes, and TabIndex attributes in the DOM structure of webpages. Fona’s evaluation approach provides a narrow analysis of one single accessibility requirement. But it enables monitoring this accessibility requirement in a large number of webpages. This monitoring activity might be used to give insights about how Focus Navigation and ARIA requirements have been considered by web development teams. Fona is validated comparing the results of a set of WAI-ARIA conformant implementations and a set of webpages formed by Alexa’s 349 top most popular websites. The analysis of Fona’s value for Alexa’s websites highlights that many websites still lack the implementation of Focus Navigation through their JavaScript interactive content.

Snapshots of innovation

Snapshots of innovation

Standardizing the narrative of use cases: A controlled vocabulary of web user tasks

ContextFor user interfaces design, the use of appropriate terminology in writing use case narratives may determine the effectiveness of the design process, facilitating communication within multidisciplinary web development teams and leading to agreed designs. ObjectiveThis paper proposes a user task vocabulary for web user interface design. This vocabulary compiles terms related to the use of web applications, regardless of the application domain, as a way of standardizing the terminology used in the elaboration of use case narrative. The use of the vocabulary would help to reduce misunderstandings within multidisciplinary web development teams. MethodThe construction of the vocabulary is based on the combination of both committee and empirical approaches. Committee approaches rely on experts in designing web applications, while empirical ones are focused on analyzing content objects, such as interaction design patterns and use case narratives. ResultsThe final version of the monolingual controlled vocabulary of web user tasks compiles a total of 40 tasks; each of them has a key term and a definition of the interaction carried out by users. Additionally, 41 semantic relationships were collected and represented as synonyms. The vocabulary has been assessed through an expert evaluation, proving its correctness and completeness, and an usability evaluation checking the efficacy of the vocabulary. ConclusionThe language employed in use case narratives can determine the value of use cases for designing user interfaces. The usage of a controlled vocabulary may allow designers to elaborate unambiguous use case narratives as a way of creating consistent task models for designing web user interfaces.

Bridging the gap between information architecture analysis and software engineering in interactive web application development

Web development teams comprise non-computer experts working on the conceptual modeling of non-functional aspects in software applications. Later on, such conceptual information is processed by analysts and software engineers to face the technical phases of the software project. However, this information transfer is often difficult to automate since the information processed by the different professionals involves different abstraction levels, as well as important cost and effort that need to be considered. The main aim of this research is to minimize these problems by increasing automation and interoperability in the development of interactive web applications. To take up this challenge, we have created and evaluated a tool that aims at bridging the gap between the conceptual definitions of web contents–i.e., the information architecture, and the UML elements for analysis and design required by software engineers, connecting functional and non-functional information to achieve the rest of technical activities during the software development process.

Towards Effective Development of Web-based Business Applications

The Internet and the Web continue to evolve at a rapid pace where the Internet as the medium for the Web to provide and share information to global users without boundaries. This has caused the information systems change from standalone desktops to networked systems in order to effectively utilise the Web-specific characteristics for easy access to information anywhere. For this reason, the development of such information systems particularly the ebusiness applications would need to change from traditional development method via software development life cycle to new development methodology through web development life cycle. This new development methodology has been widely used and recognised due to its focus on developing business applications reflecting the nature of the Web. This paper presents a comprehensive review of related literature in which the web development life cycle that considers the unique and special requirements of developing web-based applications with success factors, is more effective compared to the traditional software development. The review findings are taken as a basis for conducting case studies to investigate any issues and challenges from the perspective of web development team.

BMA Library Online: library development of Web‐based services and resources

This paper discusses the development of Web based services and resources by the BMA Library. Web access to the library's MEDLINE Plus service has been extended to include Web access to the library's Dynix/Ameritech catalogues and the introduction of a central, public Website. The library has long focussed on providing distance services to a widely dispersed user population. In using available technologies to do this efficiently, in ways that are most beneficial for our users and which will allow a high degree of user independence. The library's public Website, and a private staff Website, are developed and maintained by the library's own Web development team. Future plans, to add further interactivity to the library's public Website and the provision of further Web‐based services and resources for members, are also outlined.